TOKINA AT-X AF 100mm f/2.8 PRO D

£330/$350 The trusty Tokina macro lens has a certain old-school charm, and it’s built to last…

This Tokina lens foregoes any mod cons like image stabilization and has a distinctly retro look to its styling. Indeed, it’s the only lens in the group that doesn’t have an internal focusing mechanism, so while it’s physically shorter than competing lenses of a similar focal length, the inner barrel and front element extend noticeably at shorter focus distances. Even so, at the closest focus setting of 30cm, the front of the lens is 13.5cm from the subject, which is the same distance as the Canon 100mm L-series lens.

The autofocus is driven by a standard electric motor, which is sluggish and quite noisy. There’s no full-time manual override, but the lens features Tokina’s push-pull mechanism, so you can quickly and easily pull the focus ring backwards for manual focus, or push it forward to engage autofocus.

Uniquely in this test group, the focus range limiter switch works for manual focusing as well as in autofocus mode. More importantly for macro shooting, the manual focus ring has a long travel of more than half a turn and is very smooth and precise, enabling extremely fine adjustments. The lens isn’t weather-sealed, but the build feels very robust.

Performance

Image quality is very pleasing, with excellent sharpness and contrast, along with negligible colour fringing and essentially no distortion. The front element is deeply recessed within the inner barrel, effectively reducing ghosting and flare even without attaching the supplied hood.